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Helping refugees abroad with a Fulbright scholarship

Hamda Yusuf ’16 was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in a first-ever cohort for a “Community-Based Combined Grant,” which requires both community work and teaching in a foreign country. In fall 2016, she’ll be heading to Austria for 9 months to support Refugees Welcome, a non-profit that is dealing with the Middle East refugee crisis there, and will be an English teaching assistant in secondary schools.

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IHME study shows Syrian civil war has shortened lifespans

An IHME-led study published in the Lancet examined health in countries such as Syria, Tunisia and Yemen from 1990 to 2013 found that since the Arab Spring began in 2010, a combination of increased violence and a collapse in health care has led to the drop of the region’s average expected life span. In Syria, a deadly and complex civil war that continues to ravage the country has resulted in a particularly precipitous drop in life expectancy.

 

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Study: Most tweets following fall Paris attacks defended Islam, Muslims

Researchers at the UW Information School and the Qatar Computing Research Institute analyzed 8.36 million tweets beginning seven hours after the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and continuing for 50 hours. Searching for words and hashtags relevant to the event, the team identified about 900,000 tweets relating to Islam and Muslims. They found that while anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiments arose on Twitter, most tweets in the huge stream following the Paris attacks actually condemned the negative hashtags and expressed support for Islam.

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UW researchers use cell phone metadata to estimate poverty in developing countries

In developing or war-ravaged countries where government censuses are few and far between, gathering data for public services or policymaking can be difficult, dangerous or near-impossible. Now, researchers with the University of Washington Information School and Computer Science and Engineering Department have devised a way to estimate the distribution of wealth and poverty in an area by studying metadata from calls and texts made on cell phones.

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Nov. 24: Paris roundtable with UW faculty

Join UW faculty on Tuesday, Nov. 24 for a roundtable discussion on “Paris II: Making Sense of the World” in Thomson Hall 101 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

More details from the Jackson School of International Studies… 

Panelists for this event include:

Daniel Chirot, Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies

Kathie Friedman, Associate Professor, Jackson School of International Studies

Ray Jonas, Colonel Donald W. Wiethuechter, USA Ret., Endowed Faculty Fellow in History

Reşat Kasaba, Stanley D. Golub Chair of International Studies; and Director, Jackson School of International Studies

Anand Yang, moderator; Chair, Department of History; and Tamaki Professor, International Studies

Presented by The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, the Department of History, the Center for Global Studies, the Center for West European Studies, the European Union Center of Excellence, and the Middle East Center. The Middle East Center’s sponsorship of this event does not imply that the Center endorses its content.